Sunday, 1 May 2011

EVALUATION 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Verisimilitude is one of the most important thing in our video, because it is the one of the most important things to the artists, when they write music which aims to the same target audience as ours, and has the same genre of music, a lot of the music is about identity, trying to figure out who you are, why you are here, very philosophical meanings behind the lyrics. So in the many videos which have this element in the music, have it reflected in the video in an almost ironic way. Both “Babes in Toyland – He’s my thing” and “Slipknot – Vermillion” have a very ironic yet disturbing sense of verisimilitude due to the fact it’s so disturbing because it looks so unnatural yet there is that flowing sense to the peice, which is generally the feel of the kind of animation they use, but combined with horrific images and music to match, it gives this very disturbing emotion. The quality of the verisimilitude in these videos is matching to that of a double sided sword.

We carried on this feel into our magazine advert and our digipack, when I was editing them, I made sure I edited to very high quality, being aware of composition and colouring etc, so that it flowed, yet the images on the product were obviously not real. This feel of lets say “Perfect imperfection” Has been consistent throughout the piece, constantly trying to keep it going, keep it consistent. I think it was a good decision that we made when we decided to keep the filming to one room, as a few videos that Heidi and Lucy reviewed had the same thing, which really helped draw focus to the person, As well as the fact we didn’t do a lot of lip syncing, it detaches you from the piece, makes it seem more like an outsiders view, and your jus drawn into the music.

The magazine advert and Digipack took a lot of thought cos we really had to think in the mindset of our target audience and think of what they like, so we decided to look at PJ Harveys CD covers, and draws ideas from that.

This are all very simple designs, just a photo, edited to look low quality and somewhat polaroidish, just with a simple title, nothing particulary exciting, just plain and simple. We carried this on, and also involved photos of the band, and PJ Harvey is always on her covers, so we edited it, added simple text, with a bit of colour over black and white, just to make it stand out.

We also, in response to Babes in Toyland, we decided to almost challenge the stereotypes of women, by palying to the stereotype, but adding in disturbing images to it, and darker meanings as well as a touch of insanity, which I believe appeals greatly to the target adueience – Breaking the mould.

EVALUATION 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Verisimilitude is one of the most important thing in our video, because it is the one of the most important things to the artists, when they write music which aims to the same target audience as ours, and has the same genre of music, a lot of the music is about identity, trying to figure out who you are, why you are here, very philosophical meanings behind the lyrics. So in the many videos which have this element in the music, have it reflected in the video in an almost ironic way. Both “Babes in Toyland – He’s my thing” and “Slipknot – Vermillion” have a very ironic yet disturbing sense of verisimilitude due to the fact it’s so disturbing because it looks so unnatural yet there is that flowing sense to the peice, which is generally the feel of the kind of animation they use, but combined with horrific images and music to match, it gives this very disturbing emotion. The quality of the verisimilitude in these videos is matching to that of a double sided sword.

We carried on this feel into our magazine advert and our digipack, when I was editing them, I made sure I edited to very high quality, being aware of composition and colouring etc, so that it flowed, yet the images on the product were obviously not real. This feel of lets say “Perfect imperfection” Has been consistent throughout the piece, constantly trying to keep it going, keep it consistent. I think it was a good decision that we made when we decided to keep the filming to one room, as a few videos that Heidi and Lucy reviewed had the same thing, which really helped draw focus to the person, As well as the fact we didn’t do a lot of lip syncing, it detaches you from the piece, makes it seem more like an outsiders view, and your jus drawn into the music.

The magazine advert and Digipack took a lot of thought cos we really had to think in the mindset of our target audience and think of what they like, so we decided to look at PJ Harveys CD covers, and draws ideas from that.

This are all very simple designs, just a photo, edited to look low quality and somewhat polaroidish, just with a simple title, nothing particulary exciting, just plain and simple. We carried this on, and also involved photos of the band, and PJ Harvey is always on her covers, so we edited it, added simple text, with a bit of colour over black and white, just to make it stand out.

We also, in response to Babes in Toyland, we decided to almost challenge the stereotypes of women, by palying to the stereotype, but adding in disturbing images to it, and darker meanings as well as a touch of insanity, which I believe appeals greatly to the target adueience – Breaking the mould.

The editing process has become a long slow paced epic journey. After only taking one day to film we felt we had enough shots to create an intense music video, inkeeping with our chosen genre. As we had filmed on a DSLR camera, our footage had been saved to memory cards. This was our first issue as Sir had to take these home and convert our files to AVI's. We edited on the Premier Pro editing software and saved all our work on the W: drive, however after starting work on our computer, it seemed it was just too much memory for the computer to hold so we changed computers 3 times. By this point we decided to save all our work onto my desktop documents to i could use any computer. I edited the opening of the video and used speed duration to give it a really good look and effect, heidi then resumed with the fight and ending of the video. She too used speed duration, layered shots over the top of each other, repeated shots, reversed shots and created a quick montage at the end.It was a long and hard process to edit the footage in a slightly different way to everyone else, but I think its worth it for the high quality of the footage and fantastic shots, given to us by a SLR camera and a shallow depth of field that no one else knew of and therefore didn't use, which really helped the professional look and emotion of our peice.

Saturday, 30 April 2011

After Audience feedback, the general audience perspective in the peice was that it looked more like a movie poster, with the slogan drawing the music feel away from it. So I edited it again, taking out the slogan and readjusting the other sentence just above it to take up the space.

Monday, 4 April 2011

This is a short preliminary excersise using a Nikon D90 DSLR camera we are thinking of using with a 50mm 1.8f lens to give a different effect to the cameras that are offered to us by the media department.
We decided we like the feel of the shots, which is given to use by the long focal length as well as the shallow depth of field.
It is also easier to transfer the video files across to the computer, as well as being higher quality.

While we were trying to decide on a location for our music video, I thought that the it should be in keeping with the texts we were influenced by, videos similar to that of “Babes in Toyland” and other similar pieces which are aimed at a similar target audience. So we decided, due to those factors and based on our general first ideas for our video, that a bedroom would be good, a simple setting, which therefore diverts all focus to the actors and the meaning behind their actions etc, which is what we wanted, as it is quite a meaningful peice, and this way we will be able to give off certain emotions and meaning off the actors without the use of dialogue, but with the careful synchronisation of the lyrics to the actions of the actors and how we edit it.

We went about thinking where would be best and easiest to film, we wanted a room with good lighting, for filming, and somewhere with space and certain specifications, like a bed with pink sheets, a place to put the doll, a place to fight.

We couldn’t think of anywhere suitable, when I suggested the schools photography studio, as we could book it for the day, and as it is an empty room we can design it to our own specifications, and as there are no windows, and just studio lights, the lighting would stay consistent, which I believe can be one of the biggest drawbacks of a music video, if there is inconsistency. We decided it was perfect, and got to designing.

I cleared out an old large box as a desk, as well as bringing in a soft chair, of a light colour, to go with the walls and floor, as everything is light and plain which will help without our intention of a conceptual peice. We also brought in a bed with pink sheets, which is used in many of the sequences we planned in our storyboard, suchlike the fight scene or when she is sleeping restlessly. We also decided a mirror would be incredibly useful for artistic and interesting shots, keeping constant interest throughout the piece, ambiently, also useful for a few other shots of ours.

After setting up the studio, we started to film, and we filmed for the rest of the day, getting all the shots we needed.

COSTUMES:

We decided a significance between the two sisters was vital to keep obvious separation, as we needed that clear cut divide for the sibling rivalry feel. We decided to keep Heidi, the sister being discriminated against as plain black, a symbol of darkness, and Emily, the dominant sister in black and white stripes as a kind of hypnosis feel, as well as being significantly different. The flowers in their hair we brought in, also as props throughout, representing the sisters, and as an obvious symbol of wilted love. We also kept these flowers as a symbol for the band, as they are wearing them in our photoshoot for the digipak as well as the magazine advert.

PROPS:

Props are an important part of our music video as it is very symbolic and conceptual video, and we need to express that, even in the meaning behind each prop. We used a very typical doll, not china, but a stuffed doll, to keep this feel of our stereotype girl, with an addition of grunge, much like a PJ Harvey and Babes in Toyland. We used this during Heidi’ shots of feeling vulnerable, the doll acting as a safety blanket type of prop. We also gave a special small cupboard to the pot of the pills Heidi takes at the end, to signify the act itself, and to build tension as the song gets faster and faster.

This is our moodboard which we edited to create the feel of our music vdieo and our intentions of how it would feel. We made a lot of direct links with the photos, and added in the faded words in photoshop to give the emotions and feel, as well as naming some lyrics and song name. We also included creepy doll pictures as we are going to use one in our video to creepy effect.

Sunday, 20 March 2011

My name is Heidi Lesiw. I am a Yr13 A level Media Studies student, and for my coursework me and my group want to make a music video for the song ‘Girl With One Eye’ by Florence + The Machine. I am writing to see if I could be granted permission to use the song for my coursework, which has to be published onto the internet probably using YouTube. We are not trying to gain anything from you just the permission to use the song, all credit for the music will be given to you the record company and the band. As we are just being marked on the making/filming/editing of the video not the actual song choice.

We would be truly grateful if you could give us permission for the use of this song as this would be much appreciated.

Sunday, 6 March 2011

We researched PJ Harvey as she has a similar genre of music and lyrics, to the song we are using, 'Girl with one eye.' This is her official website. She writes her own song lyrics which are quite dark and serious. This is very similar to Florence + the machine.

THE DEVIL

As soon as I am left alone
the Devil wanders into my soul
and I pretend to myself.
I pretend to myself.
I go out to the old mile-stone
insanely expecting

you to come there, knowing

that I wait for you there.

That I wait for you there.

Come, come

come here at once!

Come, come

on a night with no moon,

because

all of my being is now in pining.

What formerly cheered me,

now seems insignificant.

Insignificant.

Here are the lyrics to one of her songs, they show a dark and moving song, similar to Florence, as they both write their own music. They have similar vibes and interesting music, and the instruments add to the effect of the song with guitars and drums. Her album covers are really original, and she is also has a split screen shot one which is the type of effect we want as the back cover to our digipack. Both have the same genre of music and just listening to their lyrics means you can create images in your mind as it was easy for us to analyse Florence's lyrics and create a narrative for the music video.

Friday, 4 March 2011

The target audience we are aiming at is probably best summed up as a angsty teenage boy, in a teenage girls body and mindset. this very typical girl outlook on life, but with the grungy edge of angst. The kind of people we are aiming the video at, are the people that listen to the music, so we have to accostum the video to their preferences. After researching PJ Harvey and Babes in Toyland we have discovered it's a very rebellious audience, people who have a lot of built up emotions, being perhaps well through puberty, and therefore having emotions all over the place. This helped us decided we would have a lot of fast cuts, lots of shuddery movement, much like the Babes in Toyland video I looked at, this will help with the "suppressed" anger feel of the peice, as well as making it easy to get into the music itself, emphasiseing on the music.